How To Carry Out a Periodic Review of a Risk Assessment

It is often a misperception that once you have carried out a risk assessment on your rental property, that this is the end of it and you are fully compliant. This isn't always necessarily true as there is also further work to be done to ensure that the risk assessments are current, any issues identified in them are dealth with appropriately and proportionately and that they are subject to a periodic review. 

This can sometimes feel like yet a further burden on your time, energy and money, however it doesn't have to be that way at all. 

In this blog post I will explain what is involved, and how to make this action really simple and straightforward. 

The first step step is to define what "Periodic" mean. This is often a "how long is a piece of string" question. There is no legal definitition of the term periodic so it is something that is open to interpretation. Having said this, a periodic review requires a certain level of judgement by the property owner or manager in terms of what this means. There are a number of factors to consider when determining what is an adequate review period. 

Considerations:

• The age and type of property
• Have there been any any significant changes at the property since you carried out your risk assessment including changes in occupants?
• Is there anything from the risk assessment that still has not been adequately dealth with?
• Has anyone spotted a further problem or issue at the property?
• Have there been any accidents or near misses at the property? 

Procedure:

• First of all review the existing risk assessment for the property
• Identify any actions to minimise or remove risks that still haven't been carried out based on the risk assessment
• Schedule in these actions, on a priority basis (most urgent first)
• Review any changes that may have been done to the property, (new systems, appliances, extensions etc...)
• Carry out a risk assessment on these changes - in most cases if the changes have been carried out professionally, the risks at the property will have been reduced
• Diarise any things that need to be dealt with on an annual basis such as Gas Safety Certificates
• Determine an overall review date for the next review: This should be determined based on the actions identified and the timescale for their implementation. e.g. if there is an urgent replacement for an old water tank to be completed, and this needs to be done within 6 weeks, then review in 6 weeks.
• Sign and date the risk assessment so that you have evidence that a review was actually carried out in the event of a claim or incident. 

Typically Gas Safety needs to be done on an annual basis, Legionella need to be reviewed around every 2 years, electricial around every 5 years, but in any case, the property should be in a safe and lettable condition at the beginning of every new tenancy. 

If you have any questions, please feel free to post them below in the comments section and we will deal with them as soon as we can.